??? In the 'best to never win the lineal title' thread and its' discussion of the V. Klitschko - Sanders fight, there was a lot of talk about whether it was for the lineal title and where they each were ranked by Ring. In researching newspaper articles on the fight they all mention that the fight was for the vacant WBC title. The press falls for the whims of the WBS organizations hook, line, and sinker. Another example - When Shannon Briggs fought Lennox Lewis the press wrote it up as Briggs challenging for Lewis' WBC title. They'll give plenty of credence to the WBS titles, but don't seem to have any awareness of lineal status or who the true champion is. When Muhammad Ali died the press called him "Three time WBA champion." Which of course is wrong; he was 4-time WBA champ due to being stripped for signing for the Liston rematch. Why not simply "Three time World Heavyweight Champion"? I get that many fans feel that the lineal title is an outdated concept, but it's only an outdated concept because the sanctioning bodies screwed it all up. It's like we say, "the lineal title is dead, so we'll just go along with recognizing championships awarded by shysters." In the lighter divisions there've been odd strippings and mysteriously ranked top contenders for decades. TV commentators acknowledge it. Boxing writers (in the mags) do too. Why do these organizations have any power at all? Is it because fighters and their managers will take any belt they can get? Because promoters need to bill contests as 'title fights'? I'm sure the answer is 'yes' in both cases. But why do we put up with it? Is it because of an attitude of "someone's got to decide champions" and no one else has stepped up in the right way (sorry, Ring)? We know better. So why do we (or at least many people) add, say, Bruce Seldon to the list of heavyweight champions? Why do we let these organizations prevent compelling fights from happening because of their screwy ratings or policies that the WTF champ can't fight the WTH champ? There... nearly forty years of the frustrations of trying to be a boxing fan comes out. I hate the sanctioning bodies.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ I grew up when there were only two world boxing governing bodies - WBA and WBC The tv networks could attract more viewers if a title was at stake It has gotten way out of hand in the last 25 yrs with so many world governing bodies Also, the WBA really went overboard with its "super champion" designation which made it so there was often more than one champion per division just with WBA designation alone. They were kind of needed in the beginning, bringing some legitimacy and order. But over time the established ones got more and more corrupt and then bogus ones were added, so that, now, it's a total mess.
Because all sports have organizations that attempt to add some semblance of structure to them. People like a certain amount of structure. Especially athletes. Even in largely or historically unregulated sports like boxing, people like there to be some sort of loose structure that makes any kind of sense ... because it's a GLOBAL sport. It's not just a league in one country. And different sanctioning bodies over the years were smart enough to understand that. And they understood if they recognized popular fighters, sucked up to the stars in the sport, praised the money men who owned arenas and staged events, welcomed boxers from all over the world ... and they gained favor with those people ... that at different points those people would listen to them when they decided they wanted to wield a little power of their own. Sanctioning bodies over the past 100 years or so all kind of operated the same. Some disappeared over time. Some stood out over others. But they've all made smart decisions and bad decisions. They've all rated undeserving people, and they've all given shots to people who otherwise wouldn't have gotten them and found major stars we otherwise would've missed. And the general media tends to listen to them because the organizations are the ones that set the rules. Who will judge the fight. When will the boxers weigh in. How often does a boxer have to fight top contenders. Who are the top contenders. What medical tests are required. Who will conduct the medical tests. What punishments are given to athletes who fail the medical tests. Everything the media has a question about and their audience wants to know about, the sanctioning body provides the answers. Magazines like RING have rated fighters. But they don't want to get involved in the actual staging and organizing and producing of the event. The sanctioning bodies are the like producers and studios that make motion pictures, that bring in the best actors and the best directors and the best writers (or the worst actors, directors and writers) ... and RING is like the film critics who complain when they don't like something and act like they know more than the people actually doing the work, but they don't actually want to do that work themselves.
